When I was working on Kurt Russell’s Soldier, one of the movie sets was out in Azusa, Ca., in a gravel pit. One day the Paint Boss came to me and said send someone over to the “747″ tail and put some graphics on it like some airlines might have. My crew of “Sign Writers”, as they are called, were back at Warner Brothers working on the “Junk Planet” set. I told him I was afraid of heights, he said “Get it done… PERIOD!”

Now here’s the scenario… the tail was propped up against some part of a burnt out space craft, vertically. I think they are about 63′ tall. Next you have those Terex trucks, 400 hundred tons.. loaded, moving the earth, literally, as they roll by. The tail was at an angle on very soft soil. I got the tallest lift available and loaded up the graphics and proceeded to try and move to the top to anchor the graphics but because of the angle I had to move in, go up, back up move in and then while still up move the lift basket to a better position. I could do about 12 feet at a time, while up there. As the trucks roll by the tail and lift would start to swaaaaaaaaay! Then the lift starts to sink into the ground. I came down and crapped my paints, well almost, then steady myself and start all over again… and that was the easy side.

Then the Paint Boss comes by and says, ” we need this for a shot by 3:30pm and it was 1:30pm. It had taken me some 45 minutes to do basically… nothing. I sucked it up and found some long straps to put around the tail to steady the whole thing and by 2:45pm I was done. The graphics were crooked but nobody ever said anything. They never shot it that day, sun not right or something.

The next day the Paint Boss came by as I was working on stage and said, ” We laughed ourselves silly watching you.” Nice.

BTW.. it was on screen for maybe 20 seconds